Monday. Today I thought I would be brave, put the twins in their buggy and go into town. I needed some shopping and I needed to start getting out and about. I need to start living again, getting into a routine, ok, even if that does only mean going to the shops for now, that's where i'll have to start.
Town was busy and I felt vunerable. Although vunerable was preferable to 'embarrased beyond belief' when, as we passed by a coffee shop where 'ladies that lunch' were seated at tables having cappachino's, Nathan tossed his Buzz Lightyear up into the air and in slow motion I watched it fly across to where it landed in a ladies extra large coffee cup. If only she had already drunk most of it, but no, it was a full cup and you would never believe how far the coffee splashes were able to reach. I stopped and apologised a hundred times and offered to pay for a new cup but thankfully, she declined the offer as a large coffee in that coffee shop would not have been cheap! Nathan was only concerned about how awful his Buzz now looked with brown coffee dripping from it and glared at the lady with a 'look what you have done to my Buzz Lightyear' kind of glare.
I was able to compose myself and carried on, ignoring that Nathan was now getting covered in drips of coffee as he refused to let me clean it, but I decided that on the face of it, I could cope with that.
The coffee incident had unfortunately made me very self concious and I felt like wherever I went, people could tell I was a single mum. I didn't have 'single mum' written across my forehead, but it certainly felt like it.
Next, I took a deep breath as I entered the supermarket. These were places that turned Beth and Nathan into Chucky dolls in their buggy. They shout so loud if they can't have something that I almost think the tins will fall off the shelves with the vibrations of their screams.
I made a start but I was immediately aware of smiling mums who were floating around effortlessly, pushing contented babys or toddler's down every aisle I went, and from my frazzled appearance I wondered did I actually look like I didn't have a husband at home who loved and supprted me, when they looked like they did? I assumed that the smiling floaty women who had contented sleeping babies in their prams or trolley's or who had obediant children in their buggy's or walking calmly by their sides were members of the 'MUCH' club, yes they must have been. Married, Untroubled, Content and Happy. So if they looked like they belonged to the 'MUCH' club then could they see that I didn't?
I only needed four items but I had never been in that supermarket before, so my usual trick of whizzing the buggy past the 'hot spots' could not be done and I emerged through the exit door with fourteen items and two children covered in the chocolate and cake they were eating.
But I had kept them quiet and hadn't drawn any attention to us, and for that I was quietly smug. As I pushed the buggy home because I just could not face getting on a bus, I consoled myself with the fact that I will be a dab hand at being a single parent very soon.
